Blockchain Fundamentals

Overview

Blockchain is one of the hottest emerging technologies. In the last few years, it completely redefined how we think about distributed applications.

This course introduces Blockchain concepts to the audience.
This is a high-level introduction to Blockchain; We have optional hands-on labs.

What you will learn

  • What is blockchain
  • Blockchain ecosystem
  • Cryptocurrencies
  • Blockchain concepts and architecture
  • Process of mining
  • Transactions and Wallets

Duration

Two Days

Audience

Technical practitioners and technical leaders

Skill level

Introductory

Industry Use Cases Covered

We will discuss some of the most common industry use cases; listed below

  • Finance
    • Transactions using Blockchain
    • Adoption of cryptocurrencies
  • Contracts
    • Using smart contracts
  • Energy market
    • Buying and selling energy (solar power)

Prerequisites

  • Open to all

Labs

  • Optional labs are provided if you want to try some blockchain programming
  • A Java development environment is needed if you want to try the labs

Detailed Course Outline

Blockchain Intro

  • What is blockchain
  • History of blockchain
  • Exploring blockchain

Bitcoin

  • Introducing bitcoin
  • Bitcoin economy
  • Creation of bitcoins
  • Exploring bitcoin; trends, prices

Blockchain Concepts

  • Peer-to-Peer architecture
  • De-centralized ledger
  • Consensus
  • Scale
  • Public vs. private networks
  • Exploring blockchain

Cryptography Primer

  • Understanding private/public keys
  • Hashing
  • Different types of hashes (md5, sha-2)
  • Base64 and Base58 encodings
  • Encryption
  • Merkle tree

Understanding bitcoin transactions

  • Understanding wallets
  • Wallet addresses
  • Acquiring bitcoin
  • Buying goods and services using bitcoin
  • Understanding transactions
  • Recording transactions

Blockchain Building Blocks

  • Hashing in blockchain
  • Wallets
  • Proof of Work
  • Proof of Stake

Blockchain Internals

  • Block details
  • Block schema
  • Block header
  • Transactions in a block
  • Inspecting transactions

Blockchain in-depth

  • Adding a block to the chain
  • Block forks and how to resolve them
  • How to avoid double-spending

Bitcoin network

  • Peer-to-Peer architecture
  • Node types and roles
  • Network discovery
  • Full nodes
  • Simple Payment Verification (SPV)
  • Transaction pools

Mining

  • Mining process
  • Reward for mining
  • Transaction fees
  • Verifying transactions
  • Transaction pool

Blockchain Applications

  • Discuss applications to be built on blockchain
  • Group discussion